Camp Zoe Memories

A Quick Tour

In 1929, the founders of Camp Zoe, R. S. McMahan and his wife, Margaret, left Highway 19 in their car and traveled up a muddy, vine-covered trail from the Sinkin' Bridge. They were looking for an ideal place to locate a summer camp in the Ozarks. Within a mile they found huge, overhanging bluffs and flowing along the edge, the crystal clear, blue-green waters of Sinkin' Creek. The gravel bar on the shallow side sloped gradually upward into the green forest. Within these 400 acres of hills and valleys covered with wild flowers and forest, the McMahans envisioned their dream camp.

From "Stories of the Upper Current River" by Margaret Vickery, as reprinted in the Camp Zoe yearbook, 1979.

The Actual camp compound was much smaller than the 400 acres mentioned above. The main area including the barn was about 30 acres. The north pasture, including the canoe pond and landfill, was also about 30 acres. Although I didn't know it at the time, most of the land owned by the camp was undeveloped. Nearly 300 acres belonging to "Camp Zoe, Inc." was simply Ozark mountain forest.
     Here's a thumbnail sketch of the buildings that made up the Camp Zoe compound:

• Mac's Cabin   Mac's Cabin, named for the founder of Camp Zoe, R.S. McMahan, housed boys ages 8, 9, and 10. Depending on the number of campers in the cabin, it could have one to three counselors stationed there. I stayed in Mac's Cabin in 1975. Mac's Cabin was originally built as the home away from home for Mac, but he later moved to a trailer north of the access road near the staff quarters and canoe pond.
• Boys Cabin During the late 70's this cabin was for boys ages 11 and 12. Boys Cabin had room for 40 campers and six counselors making it the biggest cabin in camp, although attendance figures never approached capacity while I was there. Some years the cabin was divided into "Boys Cabin A" and "Boys Cabin B" further decomposing the campers by age. I stayed in Boys Cabin in 1976 and 1977.
• Tent Cabin   During the late 70's the smallest camp cabin housed boys ages 13, 14, and 15. Depending on the number of campers, it had one or two counselors. Its small size and age of occupants made it the most desirable cabin.
• The Wash stand   Stationed between Tent Cabin and Boys Cabin, the wash stand provided access to running water. It consisted of a concrete slab with a running spigot and a shingled roof. Wooden rails provided rustic seating. Male counselors and C.I.T.s conducted nightly bull sessions at the wash stand after taps played at 10pm.
• The Outhouses   Outhouses were a holdover from the days before indoor plumbing was available locally. By the late 1970's, they served as "E.Js" or emergency johns. Boy campers who answered the call of nature after taps used the E.Js rather than the modern water closets (near the girl's cabins). The E.J.s were not popular due to the smell and the wasps that populated the wooden rafters and overhangs. I occasionally used the E.J.s in the daytime, but never after dark. Most campers crossed the gravel road to the the E.J. approach and watered the flora from the sidewalk. We saw retarded grass and plant growth as the session progressed.
• The New Shelter   Located adjacent to the snack shack and directly uphill from the Old Shelter, the New Shelter was a double-tiered concrete slab with a shingled roof. There were no walls. Imagine being in a big carport. The New Shelter provided welcome shade during the hot, sunny days common to South Central Missouri. Perhaps the most important feature of the New Shelter was the Pepsi machine. During the late 70's, a soda set you back 30 or 35 cents.
       The Sunday Vespers ceremony and the Gong show that followed were held in this spacious pavilion. Occasionally, they rented a projector and showed a movie. This was before VHS tape machines. I have no idea where they got the celluloid. I recall watching Susan St. James in "Where Angels Go, Trouble Follows". Another feature we screened was "The Wackiest Ship in the Navy". The rotting posts of the New Shelter made it a hazard and it was torn down in 1987.
• Snack Shack    When your parents dropped you off, they made a down payment on snack shack credit. Located between Cabin III and the New Shelter, the Snack Shack was open twice a day for about 30 to 45 minutes. After free swim we cooled off with a slush or a soda. My favorite was the suicide slush. In the evening about two hours before taps, you treated yourself to a soft serve ice cream cone or chocolate goodies. Each camper had a credit ticket in the designated recipe box, and when you ordered an item, they punched your ticket. Some kids went crazy on the candy and ran out of credit. I always got a little money back at the end of camp. Occasionally, they sold T-shirts with the Zoe logo in addition to the edibles. The Camp Zoe colors were yellow and brown.
• Archery Field   What would summer camp be like without archery? Not nearly as hokey. Archery was the activity you only signed up for once. Only so much fun can be had by shooting a plastic arrow at a bale of hay. Bales were covered with paper targets and stationed at 10, 20, and 30 yards away from the firing line. The archery field also served as a volleyball pit, a baseball diamond, and a track and field arena. It was the largest, tree-free, grassy area in the southern (main) part of camp. In 1978, counselor Jim Berndt set up an archery obstacle course in the woods next to the archery field. This time the hay bales were covered with paper targets of deer and other game. It was a neat idea.
• The Lodge   Camp Zoe was built on the side of a hill. The gravel bar and Sinking Creek were at the bottom. The Running River Lodge was the most regal building on the campus. Its position at the top of the hill reinforced the notion of a special place. The front exterior featured stone steps and a spacious porch. The main hall housed a stone fireplace along the back wall. Doors on both side walls led into smaller quarters. The lodge was home to the youngest girl campers when Camp Zoe enjoyed capacity crowds in the 50s and 60s.
       The lodge provided excellent shelter against the forces of nature. It was the alternate venue when rain washed out a dance or the final campfire. The lodge was home to gymnastics activities and the BB range was located behind it. Two outhouses were constructed for use by lodge inhabitants. They were later converted to bow and arrow and BB rifle storage. Another small wood building between the lodge and the tennis courts contained a well.
       Somebody put a jukebox in the lodge. Many late night card games and counselor week parties happened there. The final bash after the campers left took place at lodge too.
  
• The Old Shelter   The Old Shelter was the home of Arts & Crafts. The Old Shelter was different from the New Shelter in several ways (besides being older). One side of the shelter was enclosed and created office space. The sides of the shelter had built-in railings. The four tenants of the Old Shelter were Arts & Crafts, the photo darkroom, the Owner's office, and the C.I.T. pit. It's possible that the C.I.T. pit was converted to the darkroom, I don't quite remember. It's also possible that a small library operated out of one of the Old Shelter offices. I remember peering through the screen and seeing a couple of shelves of ancient novels. There was an unusual file cabinet located at the new shelter. It had a combo lock dial. We campers gave that lock a spin in a mock attempt to "crack the safe". I don't know what they kept in there. Workmen burned leaves near the shelter in 1987 and it caught fire. The outline of the foundation is all that's left today.
• The Girl's Cabins   I don't have a wealth of material on the girl's cabins. The biggest taboo at Camp Zoe was to be inside the cabin of the opposite sex. Even a paying customer like me faced a reprimand if I was apprehended inside the screened confines of one of those girly dens. Not only was an inside visit not allowed, we weren't even supposed to go near the outside of the cabins. An imaginary Mason-Dixon line kept us away from the girl's barracks. The most time I ever spent in a girl's cabin was in the summer of 1981 when Stuart Hanna and I returned to Zoe for a visit. We spent a couple of hours in one of the cabins talking with our friend Lei Moncrieff. It was changeover weekend so there weren't many campers around. We had a jolly good chat. The urge to start an impromptu orgy was tempered by a discussion of butt rot and athlete's foot. In the late 70's, the girl's cabins were:
  • New Cabin   
  • Cabin I   
  • Cabin II   
  • Cabin Three   
• The Cook's Cabin    The Cook's Cabin, located behind the mess hall, was home to the kitchen girls. Like many camp buildings, it was painted brown with yellow trim. In 1973, my older half-brother Chris Edwards fell down the hill behind the tennis courts and broke his leg. He came to rest behind the Cook's Cabin. As he lay there in pain, the first person to discover him was one of the cooks. Chris recalled that the cook did not realize he was injured and told him to get up.
       "That's no place for a nap," she said. I asked my brother why he was running down the hill in the first place. He said he had to go to the bathroom. After his fall he was taken to the doctor and his leg was put in a cast. He ended up waiting six hours to complete his trip to the bathroom.
• The Barn and corral   I was allergic to horses and didn't spend much time at the barn. At least that was the excuse I gave for not hanging out down there. The part about the allergy was true, but I never suffered any symptoms from it. I took horseback riding the first two years I attended. After that I gave up my secret dream of becoming a cavalry soldier.
• The North Pasture   Located north of the main entrance road, the pasture was a collection of miscellaneous buildings and landmarks. Some old stables were still standing in this area in the '70s. Counselors parked their cars there. Another storage building was the home of male staffers who worked as "barn boys" and mess cooks. Later that area became Counselor's Hole, not to be confused with the camping site of the same name, and was the designated retreat of the staff. As a camper, I was not allowed in the screened-in shack that contained a couch, coffee table, refrigerator, and ashtrays. I can't offer any stories about what went on in the hole since I never worked at camp. One rare insight comes from a letter postmarked August 14:
  
  I'm coming to you from the luxurious smoking room of counselor's hole, Camp Zoe. It's my night off and I'm crashing up here with my Salem Lights and a Harlequin romance.
  
  Kathy Krickhahn, counselor, 1980
  
  
• No Smoking  That brings up a good point: During the 70s there was no smoking at Camp Zoe in front of the campers. After all, we were supposed to be back to nature. In today's terms, Counselor's Hole was the designated smoking area of camp. In earlier times, photo evidence revealed that people smoked all over camp, although stenciled signs reminded everyone not to light up inside the cabins.
       The other half of the building provided storage for canoeing equipment. When I returned to Zoe in the summer of 2000, I discovered several old commodes, an ancient milkshake maker, and the slush machine in storage.
       If you stepped through the ramshackle gate north of the staff and storage building and looked to the west, you couldn't miss the tumble-down trailer with the power hookup. During the late 70s it was home to Carl Warren and family. Carl was the maintenance man. He occasionally pulled double duty as bus driver. His wife worked in the kitchen. When the Hambacker family ran the camp, they lived in the trailer. According to former counselor Kent Jones, the trailer was home to Painter Conway during the '60s.
  
• Pioneer Cabin   This was the staff retreat from an earlier era. It was located along the dirt path to Echo Bluff. It was a small cabin that was completely gone by the late 1970s. I have a vague memory of seeing the foundation and a gap in the fence where it once stood and nothing else.
• The Horse show ring, canoe pond and .22 range.   Once a session the horseback riders put on a show. The canoe pond offered campers the opportunity to practice their canoeing skills in the calm, safe atmosphere of a stagnant farm pond. All kidding aside, the canoe pond looks much the same today as it did in years past. I think it's a beautiful spot. Beyond the pond was the shooting range. If you signed up for 22's, you marched out to the shooting stand and loaded up your single shot rifle. Safety was stressed as a matter of routine. Since the camp landfill was behind the shooting range, we stopped firing while Carl dumped the garbage, all in the name of safety.
       Most firing at the range was done from the prone position. It was the easiest way for kids to support the rifle for an accurate shot. Consequently there were army surplus mattresses stationed at the .22 lean-to. One night in 1979, I arranged for an after taps get-together with my sweetheart at the shooting range. We smooched late into the night, taking full advantage of the relative comfort those aging pads provided us. Once again, the prone position proved to be the most comfortable.
  
• The School House   The Camp Zoe land included an old Shannon County one room school house. It was located about two miles north west of camp and was reachable by a dirt road that went by Thompson's Hole and also by an access road leading down from Highway 19. By 1975 the schoolhouse had been used as a remote location for a camp overnight excursions for many years. It offered decent shelter and a working water pump. There was also a story about a bloody mishap involving a crazy teacher and a ghost that inhabited the premises. In 1977, the camp owners renovated the school house, turning it into their primary residence when camp was in session. It still stands today, although there's no trace of its educational origins from the outside.
  
• The Graveyard   There's a Shannon County cemetery along a dirt road that runs parallel to sinkin' creek north of Thompson's Hole. It contains about 100 graves including at least one civil war veteran and markers for members of the Piatt and Conway families. They were rumored to be feuding long ago. The cemetery is available by dirt road from Zoe or by an access road that connects to Highway 19.
• The Pig Barn   There's a small barn west of Thompson's Hole that I've dubbed the pig barn. Joni Peters told me it was the home to pigs during the Peters tenure. I saw it during my visit to the Zoe property in 2004. It surprised me because I had no memory of it while I was a camper. It still stands today but it looks a bit shaky. See Camp Zoe from space.

Go Back